[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 310 - Clever Martinez

On the hillside, Michonne lowered her night-vision binoculars.

She'd caught a glimpse of someone moving behind a curtain in one of Woodbury's apartment windows.

Then the lights went out.

Fast. Eerily fast.

"What is it?" Leon's voice came from behind her.

"Nothing."

Michonne shook her head. She wasn't sure what she'd even seen.

"Probably my eyes playing tricks on me."

Day five.

Roger's "accidental" death had been like a stone dropped into Woodbury's stagnant water. Not even a ripple.

People just crossed themselves quietly and went back to fighting over the next half-piece of hardtack.

Guarding the walls with bows and spears had become the new routine.

Every day, someone, through inexperience or plain bad luck, got grabbed through a gap in the battlements by Walker claws, dragged down like a limp noodle, and swallowed by the black tide below. The screaming never lasted more than a few seconds before more snarling drowned it out.

The Governor hadn't shown his face once throughout any of it.

He sat behind the curtain like a god, coldly watching his congregation march toward its own destruction.

"Damn. That old bastard really can hold out." Merle tossed his golf club aside and picked at his feet out of sheer boredom.

"Soon." Leon leaned against a tree, eyes closed.

Night.

Martinez knocked on the Governor's door.

Martinez. The man holding things together.

"Sir... the food." His voice carried the edge of despair. "The last of the cans have been distributed."

A beat.

"We can barely catch rats anymore."

The door opened.

The Governor's eyes were red with burst vessels. But his expression was electric, wired, almost manic.

"Good." He smiled. "That means the useless ones are about to be winnowed out."

"Sir?" Martinez looked at him blankly.

"A community doesn't need that many mouths to feed."

The Governor's gaze swept over him, and for a moment Martinez felt like something cold-blooded had fixed its eyes on him.

"Keep only the ones who can work. Who can fight."

The Governor leaned close to Martinez's ear, his voice dropping low.

"Go. Make a list. Everyone who's complaining, crying, or looks the weakest."

"Tell them I want to speak with them personally. That there's extra food waiting."

A chill shot straight up Martinez's spine.

He understood immediately.

Penny was hungry again.

And this time, she was going to have a buffet.

"This..." Martinez swallowed hard. "Sir, doing this will cause panic."

"Panic?" The Governor's laugh was flat and cold. "When they can barely stand, what will they panic with?"

"Get it done." The Governor clapped him on the shoulder. "Otherwise, the next one going into Penny's room will be you."

Martinez got out of there fast.

He walked through the dead-silent streets. The night wind moved past him, and it felt like walking through hell.

He saw a mother sitting on a stoop, holding a child starved half to death, weeping without a sound.

He saw an old man digging through a trash can for anything edible.

Both of them would be Penny's dinner.

Martinez's stomach turned over.

He wanted to be sick.

He was still a person. He'd had a family, once. He'd followed the Governor because he needed somewhere to survive.

But now he'd become an accomplice. A butcher handing the knife to a devil.

And he had no way to refuse.

He stopped. Leaned against a wall, chest heaving.

He stared at the distant wilderness, surrounded by the dead on all sides, yet somehow still standing for something like freedom.

This sudden encirclement was too deliberate to be coincidence. He'd stood on that wall more than once and watched Walkers moving against the flow of the horde. That wasn't random. That wasn't in his head.

A thought formed — bold enough to spike his pulse.

Someone was herding them. Someone was running this whole thing from the outside.

So he made a decision.

One that might get him killed. Or might let him live like a human being again.

...

Inside the horde.

Murphy was slumped against a speaker, half asleep.

Then an intermittent flicker of light came from an obscure corner of Woodbury's perimeter wall.

Murphy couldn't read the pattern, but he didn't need to. Leon had told him: watch for any unusual signal from the wall. This was one of them.

He picked up the radio.

"Boss. Something's happening."

On the hillside, Leon's eyes snapped open.

He took the binoculars Rick passed him and scanned toward the signal.

SOS!

A distress signal.

Leon finally smiled.

So there were still some smart people left inside Woodbury after all.

"Daryl." He keyed the radio. "Take your team and go receive our friend."

"Keep it quiet."

Daryl picked his sharpest scouts, pulled on Walker skins, and melted silently into the edge of the horde.

30 minutes later.

A dark figure dropped hand-over-hand down a rope along Woodbury's ten-meter wall, shaking the whole way down.

Martinez.

He hit the ground and didn't get a single second to breathe before a crossbow bolt pressed hard against the center of his back.

"Don't move." Daryl's voice was low.

Martinez froze. His hands came up.

"I'm not here to fight!" Urgency cracked his voice. "I came to surrender. I want to see your boss."

"I know Woodbury being trapped isn't an accident. Someone set this up."

The others quickly draped a Walker skin over him to keep him from getting bitten.

"Our boss doesn't take meetings on request." Daryl's wolf-like eyes moved over him slowly.

"The Governor has lost it." The words came out ragged, barely controlled. "He's completely lost it."

"He's feeding people to his daughter. She turned — she's a Walker — and he's been using the residents as food for her."

Daryl's brow tightened.

Leon had predicted the Governor would do something desperate when cornered. But this, this went beyond tactical calculation. It crossed a line that made even Daryl feel physically sick.

"You have to stop him. Please." Martinez was close to dropping to his knees. "There are nearly two hundred innocent people still in that town. That man is going to destroy every last one of them."

Daryl said nothing.

He keyed his radio and relayed everything Martinez had said, word for word, to Leon.

Silence on the other end.

Long enough that Martinez began to think he'd already been given a death sentence.

"Bring him over."

Leon's voice finally came through.

➤ Next: Go Back and Stir Things Up